CONCORD, N.C. — While the Next Gen car has seen its fair share of road-course racing this season, the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course marks the first the 2022 Cup Series car has turned competitive laps on the oval/road-course hybrid.
Familiar road-course aces like AJ Allmendinger and Austin Cindric appeared to have adapted seamlessly to the track as they topped Saturday’s practice session but defending Roval winner and Cup champion Kyle Larson struggled to put down consistent runs in both practice and qualifying. The driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet failed to advance to the pole round of qualifying and will roll off 18th, his worst lineup spot at the Roval in four starts.
“For me here this feels way different than before,” Larson said. “Just trying to get a hang of it I guess because I’m way off the pace. It probably feels more normal for guys running as fast as they are but for as slow as I am, I don’t feel the same.”
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Larson enters Sunday’s playoff race 18 points above the elimination line.
Chase Briscoe has only made one Cup Series start on the Roval and his postseason run took a slight twist Thursday after William Byron’s post-Texas penalty was amended, eliminating the 25-point penalty that was initially handed to the driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet. With Briscoe now being 12 points below the Round of 8 elimination line entering Sunday, he will have to execute a near-perfect day to lock his spot into the semi-final playoff round.
Like Larson, Briscoe will start in Row 9 for Sunday’s race after running a hot lap that placed him 17th.
After qualifying, Briscoe said the track felt unfamiliar despite having made four previous starts (three Xfinity, one Cup) on the 17-turn, 2.28-mile circuit.
“Yeah it’s like a whole new race track with this car,” the second-year Stewart-Haas Racing driver said. “It drives nothing like anything I’ve ever driven before, so yeah I don’t think you can take anything from the past. It’s the same race track and the same apexes but how you drive the car is just completely different.”
No matter the car, Byron has been one of the better Roval competitors. Despite not winning any of the first four races at the track, he leads all active drivers in laps led with 80 – 16 more than his Hendrick teammate and two-time winner Chase Elliott.
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Byron continued his consistency on the Charlotte road course with a front-row qualifying effort, putting him to the outside of pole-sitter Joey Logano for the drop of Sunday’s green flag. After struggling in the test runs in the Roval’s infancy, Byron credited that day to what allowed to him find success in his four Roval starts.
“I think the first time we came here I crashed really big and after that, I was like ‘it can only go up from here, ” Byron said. “I left the test feeling behind and like I hadn’t learned what I needed to while everyone else was testing. I got a chance to watch the rest of the test outside the track for a few hours so maybe that helped me. Just worked hard at it after that.”
Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 is scheduled for 2 p.m. ET and can be viewed on NBC and the NBC Sports App, and listened to on PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.